Disturbing Information

I found this link and thought some of you might be interested in it. It’s a detailed list of police raids that have caused the deaths of innocent people, or resulted in other similar tragedies. Although the CATO institute is a bit too libertarian for my taste (including their reverence for total ‘laissez faire’ capitalism), they nevertheless are a watchdog for abuse of power in government. Here’s a few examples to be found on the site:

At 7:40 P.M., North Little Rock SWAT executed a no-knock raid on the home of Tracy Ingle. Ingle reached for his legally-owned although inoperative pistol to defend himself until he realized the “intruders” were, in fact, police. He dropped the weapon on the ground. Ingle was shot five times by the officers and incarcerated for four days after released from the hospital. No drugs or drug residue were found on the premises, but he was charged with assault and running a drug enterprise-the police found a scale and plastic bags during the subsequent search.

Here’s a special homophobic raid:

In July 2006, police officers in flak jackets donning assault weapons and shields raid a gay gym/social club in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Patrons — some of whom were dragged from the locker room naked — are handcuffed and forced to lie on the floor at gunpoint for more than an hour. One man is taken into a separate room, where, he says, officers photograph him and ridicule him.

“We saw about 15 or 20 flashes coming from there and heard lots of laughter,” one patron would later say. “They (the officers) were having a good old time. It was like the gay Abu Ghraib.”
Police officials later said the SWAT raid was due to reports that the club was dispensing alcohol without a license.